Friday, December 11, 2009

photographed at the Birmingham Art Museum (BAM)outside in their art garden

Slow down, you move too fast.You got to make the morning last.

As I wake up every morning lots of times I wake up with good ideas. It is a wonderful state of consciousness. It is there when I wake in peace and take the time to listen. It can be a time of new ideas for pots, creative display ideas or a key to finding inner peace.

Today I realized I need desperately to slow down. I remember as a child spinning a large metal top on a hard linoleum floor. You push down hard and press the metal stem making a grinding noise, metal against metal, applying more and more pressure. Then you let go and it spins and spins nearly falling over several times until it comes to rest on its side. I am a top.Every year I love and hate the Christmas season. I love to make art people want. I love to go to a show and sell like a maniac and get the compliments feeling greatly rewarded in so many ways for my hard work. I love it when people want to buy my work.I hate pricing my pottery. It is not that I don't know how. There are formulas, experience and real ways to honestly price my work. Whenever I mention this, my ever so helpful friends start telling me how this is done, as if I don't understand, and scolding me for severely underpricing my work.I knew I was really in trouble when a friend, a savvy saleswoman friend, came up with a great idea. "I want to sell your pots for you and price them what they should be. That $70 pot should sell for at least $300. I am going to open a shop and sell your pots under a fake name and they will sell like hotcakes." Have I shot myself in the foot now? I cannot even try to sell for more if I sign the pot? The worse thing is, I like the idea. I would love to just make them and someone else, with not ego involved, can sell them. But, what has this spinning top done? Have I landed unsuccessfully on my side before finishing the spin?

I just quit weight watchers after losing 15 pounds. I will admit that 7 and half of those pounds were lost in PA while teaching at the Jewish Kids Camp in the summer where the food was not so great and I walked a lot. Now in this "spinning" part of the year, I find myself craving petifors and rich luscious foods. And, I know I should put my shoes on, go walk and take care of myself. The waist thickens, the face gets big and yikes! How quickly we can undo good habits and begin to pay the price.

The Christian work ethic. I don't like it. I do it. We cannot escape our culture. How do we keep the top from spinning so hard? I am a free spirit who can easily be sucked into getting great pleasure from being extremely productive. Something tells me it gives me a place of respect. It makes me valuable. So then why do I need to work under an alias to make this happen? Something is wrong with this picture.

I knew life was out of balance the other day when I quickly ran into Whole Foods looking for some delicious squash/crab creamy soup and noticed I was in another universe. People were taking their time, enjoying shopping, slowly carefully picking out their dinner and smiling at the same time. I was in a spinning marathon, rushing to get back to work and hurry and eat my dinner before a long night of teaching after working all day.

I am not whining. I am thinking out loud. When we do this public journal thing we open up to much criticism. I write these thought publicly because I know so many others feel this way as well and we need moral support and understanding. I thank everyone who has written me to say, "Thank you. You feel this way too? I thought I was the only one."

I like being busy but it is time to sit back and look for the balance. My husband wonders if he is even married and patiently waits for the calm after the Christmas storm as he has for some 35 years. My cats beg for my attention. The dust is thick on bookshelves. I may have to go back to the beginning of my half read books. My chest of drawers looks as bad as my office, cluttered and piled sky high. I haven't raked the yard yet.

I do have hope. I am not going to make a lot of cash again this year. But, my son replaced the windows in the garage door of my studio. I can clearly see the channel two tower and I can tell if it is day or night, dry or wet or soon to be snowing. But the really special and most calming thing is watching the hawk on channel two's tower. We have a special relationship from my point of view. I look out several times a day to see if she is resting on the perch of the antenna or swooping around the tower. She brings me calm. Watching the grace of flight. Watching her do her job as she watches for her dinner below. Sometime she is just in her nest, privately resting. I wonder if she watches me too. I would offer her a bunch of feeder mice on a box on the roof if I thought she wanted and could see them. And a very creative friend suggested I throw some in the air. Well, I do have a slingshot but it just doesn't sound right. So I will just watch. And, take a few lessons from the hawk.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

John and I have a TV date every Sunday night and we watch desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. Don't worry, we don't take TV seriously. I hardly ever watch TV. But this is our ritual. I go to Whole Foods and choose 3 special cheeses, cut some apple, add a few other good appetizers like stuffed grape leaves or maybe olives. And of course a good glass of wine. We kick back our shoes and stuff ourselves and laugh.

Pan roasted almonds with a touch of salt and raw sugar. Addictive addition!

Part of the ritual spread on the TV trays.

OK. So I have fallen off the weight watcher wagon again. Guilty. What can I say. I love to cook and I am a foodie. I will jump back on right after I try a few new recipes. Here is a great and simple one from Chips,Dips, & Salsas, by Judy Walker and Kim MacEachern.If you are ever invited to a potter's pot luck etc. GO. We love to cook generally speaking. There is something about beautiful food and beautiful pottery. They go hand in hand.Oops, I did not put this on one of my cheese plates. Mistake on my part on my pottery blog but oh well imagine it and next time I make it I will put it on a plate I made.

I made this recipe on Thanksgiving and it was so good I had to make it again. It is fresh and lovely and extra tasty. It is recommended over goat cheese. Having a picky veggie daughter I put it on pound cake for Thanksgiving. This time served it over goat cheese and also spread it on celery and apples to lower a few calories. And, I have been known to just reach in and snatch some out of the bowl in a spoon. No double dipping!

The Chambord, syrup and cinnamon make this dish. Don't worry about the chill time frame. It is good new or the next day. I think it would even be good on cardboard. Great! Easy.

About Me

Brookside Pottery started in Tulsa in 1991. It is a working pottery studio with stoneware sculpture and dinnerware, clay glazes tools and equipment.
I have been making pottery and sculpture for over 35 years. In 1978 I finished my master's degree in ceramics from the University of Tennessee. I taught art at Webb middle school. I moved to Emory Va where I started Meadowview Pottery Workshop and taught part time at Emory and Henry College.My husband John and I moved to Austin Texas for his PHD and I worked at pottery shop Feats of Clay for 4 1/2 years. We moved to Norman OK for two years. Tulsa was our next move and I started Brookside Pottery about 18 years ago. I have studied with many significant potters across the nation including Fawn Navasie, Richard Zaken, Sylvia Hyman, Josh Deweiss, Hal Reiger and more. I have shown in McClung Museum,
Knoxville a couple of times, won various sculpture awards and most recently featured in 25 potters in Ok in Studio Potter magazine. I love raising my family and going to the movies with my husband. And, if I am not home I can only hope I am traveling in some exotic place and writing.